Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Light Fighter(/Bomber)s

G. Portable fusion guns are only available from technological level fourteen onwards.

H. This sort of indicates that only the Imperium, Solomani Confederation, Zhodani, Hivers, and maybe the ponies would arm their smallcraft with them.

I. It makes it practical to install them in analogues of Twin Ion Engine, and Ecks Wing, fighters.

J. Technological level thirteen, it would be the newly introduced plasma gun, man portable, though at half the damage.

K. And feasible, portable plasma gun at technological level twelve halves the range, but would remain within adjacent range band.

 

[Nelphine]

I'd also think Vargr would buy all of them that they could, legal or not, as the ultimate individual superiority weapon. There would also be plenty of TL12 and 13 Vargr wotrlds who would have them as prototypes.

 

[Condottiere]

Yes and no.

Spacecraft weapons can prototyped.

I haven't seen the same for groundscale ones, and to be fair, it's not something that would be obvious to a game designer, much like using them in space dogfighting might not occur to them.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasters

1. A sandcutter canister may be targeted against an enemy ship within Adjacent or Close range and a successful attack halves the protection given by any sand canisters the enemy uses that round.

2. Presumably, unpowered and unguided.

3. Weapon customization for the caster platform at technological level eleven could increase that to short range, upto twelve and a half hundred klix.

4. Pack the canister with high explosives, and the appropriate fuze.

5. Muzzle velocity is unknown, but if it's fast enough, and you have hyper velocity, evasion becomes less possible.

6. At which point, less gun powder, more discarding sabot dart.

7. Currently, tank on tank action is line of sight, so that would be within close range, or ten klix.

8. If it can poke a hole in an Abrams, it should be able to penetrate a spacecraft hull.

9. Though you'd need to understand how far a caster's range would be effected by a local gravity field and an atmosphere, maybe planetary rotation and temperature.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasters

A. Since there's no official record of someone stuffing canisters with high explosive, anything involving damage and effect become purely speculative.

B. The nearest analogue might be barrel bombs.

C. The problem with firmpointed variants, is that range becomes adjacent.

D. That would be upto one klick, or a thousand metres.

E. Which would be less than a mortar.

F. Longed range customization would push that to ten klix.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasters

G. When targeting boarders, pebble canisters cause 1DD damage (Ground scale).

H. Which, as I recall, is basically one dice of damage, about the same as a beam laser.

I. Which, in a dogfight, is basically at the same range.

J. Though at plus four, a beam laser is more likely to hit a target, but you need three power points.

K. A twelve tonne heavy gun has the same damage, at an effective range of twelve klix, costing four hundred starbux per shell.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasters

L. You could make budget versions of this weapon system.

M. Inaccuracy could be due to a non aerodynamic shape of the canisters, and/or cheap targetting sights.

N. Increased size would require both the canister and the caster to be enlarged.

O. Since it seems only the caster is powered, you couldn't use this on the canister.

P. But since there's no discernible power draw for the caster, this seems somewhat of a cheat.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasters

Q. In theory, being neither a torpedo nor a missile, but a flying trashcan, (very) high yield restrictions do not apply.

R. Repair and resilient aren't really required.

S. So it's technological level eleven, between long ranged and accuracy.

T. I'd go for long range (upto twelve hundred and a half hundred klix), from ten.

U. Except for the guided aspect, tend dice of groundscale damage with pebbles is about the same as a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasters

V. As I recall, the canister is supposed to create a shotgun effect.

W. That would mean that a bonus to the attack roll would be the spread factor.

X. Which we don't know.

Y. For pebbles and birdshot, the area of effect that would engulf a boarding party.

Z. Which, of course, would be used to calculate the blast area dirtside.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Support Mortar

1. Support mortar is technological level seven, and at quarter tonne, qualifies for a quarter tonne spacecraft weapon slot.

2. At nine dice of damage, close to ten dice of the caster/pebble.

3. At eleven kilostarbux, plus five kilostarbux per installation if on a smallcraft of less than fifty tonnes.

4. Any hull fifty tonnes and up would need fifty kilostarbux per installation.

5. I'm going to guess it's the pop up mechanism that costs that much.

6. Ammunition defaults to a hundred starbux per shell.

7. Traits being artillery, and blast factor six.

8. Range is three klix, presumably short would be seven hundred fifty metres, long six klix, extreme twelve klix, and extreme/low gravity twenty four klix.

9. Default damage being nine to fifty four, divided by ten, zero to five.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Firmpointed Single Turret

1. I started designing firmpointed turrets with four quarter tonne groundscale weapon systems for smallcraft.

2. Before it occurred to me that the operative word there was single.

3. Which means that however many weapon systems I installed, only one would have a hole that it could shoot out of.

4. So, that could be anything upto one tonne, but singular.

5. If I installed a quarter tonne weapon system, I'd have in theory three quarter tonnes empty.

6. You could use that space for sensors and electronics, though I don't recall any spacecraft variant below a tonne.

7. You could also use it to store ammunition, or a battery pack.

8. Theoretically, another nine missiles.

9. Or use the space as a wine cellar.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Firmpointed Single Turret

A. Surprisingly, there are very few groundscale weapon systems that fully take up the one tonne, and would be worthwhile.

B. In theory, the technological level six heavy autocannon, and the technological level twelve medium gauss cannon.

C. Lower tonned weapon systems are possible, though at a quarter tonne and below, you might prefer to have them mounted, instead.

D. Though for missile weapon systems, you can reload them, which might not be possible if mounted.

E. You could upscale a smaller weapon system, and possibly, upgrade it.

F. Or, downscale a larger one.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Battlefield meson gun...

 

[Condottiere]

You know, I actually considered that.

In terms of downscaling, you likely need minimum technological level sixteen, even if you reduce damage, and/or range.

And, you can get the small bay variant at technological level eleven, fifty tonnes versus sixty, greater range, but needs actual power points.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Top 5 PIRATE SHIPS in Star Wars | Star Wars List

Drink up, me hearties, yo ho! In this week’s video, we be scourin’ the Star Wars universe for the best pirate ships doubloons can buy.

Crews of ten to two hundred.

Guidelines, anyway.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Adventure Class Ships

1. So I more or less finished reading this.

2. I'd have commented more, like with Small Craft Catalogue, but there wasn't much new in it.

3. The Sword Worlders were stuck at technological level twelve, which is not a surprise.

4. The Aslan and the Vargr were stuck at technological level thirteen, which was kinda.

5. It confirmed that you can weld parts of scrapped hull together to frankenstein a starship, as long as the configuration is (now) dispersed.

6. It did get me wondering what's the maximum tonnage for a single crew member.

7. You can minimalize the crew to two at upto one kilotonne.

8. Disregarding virtual crew, robots, and drones.

9. And enlarging existing designs, using hull plugs (presumably).

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Crewing Around

1. Captain - Senior crew(man).

2. Pilot - required.

3. Astrogator - pilot.

4. Engineer - thirty five tonnes, or less, of engineering.

5. Mechanic - one per hull kilotonne.

6. Gunner - you'd have to slave to the computer, or the pilot.

7. Steward - make your own sandwich, or pop that ramen packet.

8. Administrator - paperwork.

9. Sensor Operator - automated warnings.

A. Medic - autodoc.

B. Hull - upto one kilotonne, maximum thirty five tonnes of engineering.

C. Skill(s) requirement - Pilot/zero, Astrogator/zero, Engineer/zero, Mechanic/zero, Gunner/zero, Admin/zero, Electronics/zero.

D. If this was a career path, (six) Basic Training (skills), plus one from rank/zero.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Crewing Around and Engineering

1. Smallest default jump drive is ten tonnes.

2. Manoeuvre drive is one percent of hull volume, assuming one gee acceleration.

3. At default, starships equipped with early fusion reactors would need three percent of hull volume to cover motivation and basic needs.

4. So for a hundred tonnes, that's ten tonnes for the jump drive, one tonne for the manoeuvre drive, and three tonnes for the power plant.

5. Per hundred tonnes, assuming monoparsec drive, that's a fixed tonnage of five tonnes, plus six and a half tonnes per hundred tonnes of hull volume.

6. Thirty tonnes divided by six and a half tonnes equals four hundred sixty one and a halvish tonne hull.

7. Going by customary hull sizes, that would indicate that a single crewman could sail a four hundred tonne starship, by himself.

8. Going by the tech tree, you can reduce the size of engineering components by upto thirty percent.

9. That would be six hundred and fifty nine tonne hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Crewing Around and Engineering

A. Minimum basic is half listed power points.

B. So, in theory, you'd only need ten power points per hundred tonnes, to keep the lights on, and life support running.

C. That, plus one gee acceleration, means twenty power points per hundred tonnes, or a two tonne early fusion reactor.

D. Variable is now five and a half tonnes, over thirty tonnes, which is five hundred forty five and a halvish tonne hull that a single crewman can sail.

E. Thirty percent reduction would be seven hundred seventy nine tonne hull.

F. At this point, I'd probably design the hull that the bridge and engineering are next door to each other.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Neapolitan Turrets

1. Turrets (and fixed mounts) can mix match weapon systems.

2. It's obvious that having a homogenous grouping of weapon systems will have a better effect.

3. However, if you have enough gunners, you can man all the turrets, and they become separate weapon systems, rather than be controlled by a central fire control.

4. If you're facing non capital spacecraft with minimal hull armour, the more optimum solution is presenting the enemy commander with series of dilemmas, rather than a single all out attack.

5. Having the classic combination of laser, caster, and missile rack, allows a flexible response to any given situation.

6. Having multiple Neapolitan turrets also allows tracking of multiple targets.

7. Or, a single target, from multiple angles.

8. Just because a whole bunch of missiles are launched from the same spacecraft at the same target, doesn't mean they're the same salvo.

9. Different missiles could have different bonuses and penalties, different effects, different performances, and different arrival times.